III
The owner of said Jewish horses, and of much of Mombasa, was one A.S. Talal, also proprietor of Talal General Stores, the Selfridges of Kenya, with large branches here and in Nairobi and smaller outlets in Kisumu and Nakura; Talal Transport, the principal bus company — one traveled to Nairobi by rail, but TT was the virtual monopoly within the main towns; and Talal Brewers, producers of Green Tiger Lager, Black Circle Stout, and a line of non-alcoholic beverages including, under license from Schweppes, bottled waters, fruit juices, and an intensely sweet potion called Ken-Kola that was popular with His Majesty’s Forces because it could be readily fermented. Startled newcomers to Mombasa often took cover from the sound of Ken-Kola bottles exploding in the night.
Talal was clearly profiting from the military invasion. Officers smoked his Kilimanjaro-brand cigarettes — packaged to look like Players — while other ranks tended to roll their own from the locally grown Royal Virginia Estates Blend, also Talal’s. When uniforms wore out (women’s excepted — I had mine made up by a local dressmaker) as they did with amazing rapidity in the moist climate, off-the-peg replacements were available from cloth woven by Talal Mills and sewn by Talal Tailors Ltd. The ferries that moved in the harbor were Talal’s, the plantations of coconut in the lowlands and, of conspicuous value, tea in the highlands were Talal’s, and — I was given to understand — the same individual had at one time played a significant role in the business of betting, which was the nonwhites’ chief hobby, followed closely by adultery and alcohol. (Among the European residents the order of preference was said to be reversed.)
If I had thought this louche background made A.S. Talal seem vaguely romantic, like an American gangster who had, as they said in Edward G. Robinson movies, gone legit, I could not have been farther off-base. Like most successful Indians in Africa, A.S. Talal was hard-headed and narrowly focused. He may also have been the most off-putting man I had ever met.
This was not because he had mangled features or missing limbs. For an Indian, his skin was lighter than most, his features almost European — though his nose was quite large and as hooked as any in a Nazi propaganda poster — and his manner of dress and personal hygiene more than acceptable. It was his ego, which could have swallowed up Lord Braithwaite’s and Cyril Albright’s together. What I found repellent was not his appearance but his attitude.
“A flight lieutenant?” he said to me on first sight, pronouncing it the way the Brits did, left-tenant. “I should have thought wing commander at least. Young lady, would you mind terribly going back to your superiors and coming back a colonel, or a general? We’ve got four generals in Mombasa these days. Surely Braithwaite can spare just one?”
I wasn’t sure how to take this, or if the taut glare on his smooth, unlined face was its natural condition. “I’m certain that can be arranged, Mr. Talal,” I said, with the intention of not backing off. “But you wouldn’t want the admiral to raise someone in rank merely to impress you. I had heard you were shrewder than that.”
Now he looked at me in a different way. His jaw relaxed a bit, and behind his thick frameless lenses that were darkened into some sort of deep rose I could just make out a light, a glint perhaps.
“What is your mission, flight lieutenant?”
“It was explained to me as liaison, sir.”
“You can drop the ‘sir,’ young lady.”
“You may drop the ‘young lady,’ sir.”
He smiled. “And if I drop her, will she break?”
We were in his office, a room about three times the size of the duty room at Allidina Visram School, and rather more tidy. For one thing, no flies or bats. Talal’s desk was a large Indo-Biedermeier affair of what appeared to be ebony, rather intricately and deeply carved on the legs — it might have started out in life as a dining table — with brass repoussé on the surface protected by glass. From my angle, in the single chair opposite, purposely designed to be somewhat lower than his, the relief appeared to be a tableau of ganeshas, the elephant-headed gods of success, figures as complex and detailed as those in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. But in the Vatican one looked up in order to feel the grandeur of the heavenly host and the insignificance of man. Here Talal looked down, the gods encased in glass at his fingertips.
“I am hardly that fragile, Mr. Talal.”
“I expect not, if Braithwaite sent you.”
A long moment ensued. Talal’s large table before me, I decided to lay my cards, such as they were, upon it. “The vice admiral has heard you are in possession of something he desires.”
“Mombasa?”
“The vice admiral already has that.”
“Only superficially,” Talal said. “It’s a tricky place.”
“Mombasa is under military rule, sir.”
“My dear, for a thousand years Mombasa has been under military rule — of the Galla, the Zimba, the Swahili, the Omani many times, the Dutch, the Turks, the Portuguese any number of times, the Swahili yet again, and now the British. But Mombasa does not succumb. To govern here is one thing, to rule another.”
“Nevertheless, Mr. Talal — ”
“Would you like to see my stables now, flight lieutenant, or would you prefer to discuss these matters in the abstract?”
He must have seen the surprise I quickly covered with a smile. How did he know? “If you wish, sir.”
“Please do call me Abraham.”
It would be a week before I could bring myself to that. “I would be honored to see what it would please you to show, Mr. Talal.”
He snorted, then carefully removed his glasses and, with a handkerchief so white it glowed, slowly and methodically cleaned the lenses. His eyes were large, and of a shade that made the brilliant azure of the harbor seem muddled and gray. I had never seen an Indian with blue eyes before and must have stared. He replaced the spectacles and stood.
“Ferrin,” he said. “Ferrin. What sort of name is that?”
“Canadian, sir.”
“Come now, flight lieutenant. There is no such thing as a Canadian name. Beyond the poor Eskimos and Aleuts, Red Indians and so on, all Canadians are immigrants. What sort of Canadian are you?”
“My family emigrated from Russia before the turn of the century.”
“Orthodox, then? Where the priests marry? Long beards? Those big black hats?” He was toying with me.
“Jewish Canadian,” I said.
He raised his head, as though to look at me from another angle. “Ahhhh…” He stretched out the sound until it seemed to be less a recognition than a sigh. “Send a Jew to deal with a Jew. Very clever man, your Braithwaite. But hardly subtle. Not subtle at all.”
As I accompanied Talal, who was a bit shorter than I — his trunk was somewhat too long for his legs — out of the office and down steps leading to grounds as manicured as my nails had been in another life, I realized finally that what was so off-putting about the man was also, to me at least, so attractive. He was smarter than those around him, knew it, and wanted you to know it too, not so much to impress but to get this awkward bit of business out of the way. On the gravel path to his stables, I discovered I didn’t care. Smart was what I liked. It had always been what I liked. If that had to be wrapped in ego, it was a small price. I found I rather liked Abraham Talal.
IV
After moving up so abruptly in rank I was no longer permitted to continue dining at Sergeants Mess, and missed it. No merit had attended my promotion to the dining room of the Imperial Hoteclass="underline" I didn’t belong.